


watching the ocean watching the shore

by embellished



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 05:19:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embellished/pseuds/embellished
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows Robb and Theon are together. It's just Robb and Theon who haven't worked it out yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	watching the ocean watching the shore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mockyrfears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockyrfears/gifts).



> I wrote this as a companion to [The Heart That You Call Home](http://archiveofourown.org/works/586693), and if you've read the other fic you might hopefully see how this one sort of bookends it? But I think this fic still works as a stand-alone - so if you haven't read the other one you don't need to worry!

o1. Sansa

Sansa flops back onto her bed. Settling herself comfortably on the lacy bedspread, her hair fans out around her face and her eyes fall on the fairy lights that wind around the four-poster frame. They twinkle reassuringly back at her, and she smiles a little. It’s been a long day, and she’s glad to finally be home. 

Sighing, she takes a moment to appreciate her surroundings. Her room is basically a teenage girl’s dream – all soft shades of pink, with photos of her friends and pictures of her favourite boy bands and actors tacked to the walls. Flipping over, she gazes at one of her posters of Zac Efron. He’s way hotter than Joffrey Baratheon, she thinks – and she’s willing to bet that he’s a whole lot nicer as well. Sure, she’d had a little crush on Joffrey, like, forever ago, but then he’d turned out to be basically the most horrible person on earth. And after what he’d said at school that day… she would _so_ never forgive him.

Rolling to the edge of her bed, she leans down and fishes her diary out from where it’s hidden beneath her mattress. It’s little and cute and has a tiny lock on the side, and no one knows she keeps it – thank god, or else Arya would totally be breaking into it every second day.

Grabbing a pen and the miniature key from her bedside table, she removes the lock, flips to the next blank page and begins to write.

_Dear Diary,_

_Joffrey was absolutely awful today. I can’t believe I ever fancied him. He went ballistic at Jeyne for no reason – just because she got in his way when he was in a foul mood. He was so cruel she was practically crying, and when I stepped in to help –_

Sansa stops, twirls her pen between her fingers. She’d been perfectly mild, actually. Just commented on how sad it was that some boys felt the need to tear women down to make themselves feel better – although of course she did understand why certain boys would _need_ to make themselves feel better, seeing as how their team was so roundly slaughtered by Robb’s on the football field over the weekend.

Joffrey had turned a furious shade of red while his friends sniggered beside him. “Your brother can suck my cock,” he’d spat out, then paused before adding, “though he’d probably enjoy that. Tell me, between him and that Greyjoy, who tops and who bottoms?”

His friends had laughed dutifully, back on his side again. Sansa had had any number of retorts on the tip of her tongue, but then Mrs Mordane has turned up to berate the boys for the scruffy state of their uniforms, and Sansa had known it was best to stay silent. So while Joffrey was charming his way out of a detention, she’d just lead Jeyne away to calm down in the bathroom. It had definitely not been the best way to spend their lunch break – but at least Margaery Tyrell had happened across them when she’d come in to reapply her lipstick, and she’d sworn to get revenge on their behalf. 

Tapping the end of her pen against her bottom lip, Sansa briefly allows herself to wonder what Margaery could be planning, before returning her thoughts to the diary entry in front of her.

 _Joffrey started saying stuff about Robb, like he and Theon were together. You know, as if it’d be a bad thing. I wish they_ were _boyfriends. It would be so cute._

She’s just crossing the T when she hears a commotion out in the hall. Swinging herself off the bed, Sansa goes to peek through her bedroom door. _Speak of the devil._ She can hear Robb and Theon’s voices rising from the stairs, and then they burst into view, a laughing tumble of limbs and boyish enthusiasm. They make their way to Robb’s bedroom, where Sansa knows they will spend the rest of the afternoon playing violent video games on Robb’s computer.

They don’t see her – don’t have eyes for anyone else, really. And as Robb turns away from Theon and disappears into his room, there’s just one tiny moment where Theon gets this unbelievably soft look on his face. A split second where his heart is sketched into the gentle curve of his lips; deep, honest affection written in his gaze.

And then Robb calls out some joke and it’s gone, replaced by one of Theon’s trademark smirks.

Sansa sighs as Theon follows Robb into his room and kicks the door shut behind him. All she wants in the whole world is someone to look at her the way Theon looks at Robb, and they don’t even realise what they have. 

Suddenly frustrated, she turns on her heel and heads back to her diary.

_They totally love each other but they’re just too stupid to figure it out. I hope they get it soon. It’s like I’m living in a romance novel and I don’t know how much more of the will-they-won’t-they I can stand!_

Dating the page, she signs off with her curly, swirly signature. She’s just tucking the diary back into its hiding place when she hears a loud burst of laughter from two doors down.

Honestly, _boys_. They were all so _dumb._

 

o2. Cat & Ned

Cat sits in bed with a book propped open in her lap. Reading is a luxury she doesn’t often have time for, what with work and raising six children (seven if you counted Theon – and Cat had long ago accepted that she always had to count Theon), but she still loves nothing better than getting stuck into a good mystery novel, or a political thriller with plenty of intrigue. And as Ned had insisted on taking care of the kids for the night, she was settling in to treat herself.

She gets through a few chapters before she starts to pick up on the sounds of the household finally getting ready for bed. Down the hall she knows her husband is making the rounds, saying goodnight to the kids.

“Don’t stay up too late, boys,” she hears, followed by the shuffling sounds of slippers on carpet.

Seconds later Ned walks through the door, closing it gently behind him.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he shakes his head in a kind of tired resignation. “What are we going to do about them?” he asks, untying the fuzzy yellow robe Sansa and Arya gave him two birthdays ago and which he still wears every night.

Cat frowns, sits up a little straighter. “What have they done now? If Theon’s tried to break into the liquor cabinet again I swear –”

“No, no, they’re fine,” Ned replies quickly, not wanting her to get up. “I just mean their friendship. Relationship. Whatever you want to call it. What are we going to do about _that?_ ”

“Ah.” Cat marks her page and sets the book down on the bedside table. “That.”

“Yes. That.” Ned shrugs off his robe and hangs it on a hook on the back of the door. “Do we give them the talk, or what?”

“We gave Robb the talk when he was ten. If you recall, he said that Theon had already explained it all to him, though using slightly different terminology. Then he asked you what a cunt was.”

Cat’s lips twitch into a grin at the memory, and Ned makes a comically pained face as he walks over to his side of the bed. Rolling back the covers, he sits down on the edge of the mattress, slides off his slippers and lines them up carefully. Then, turning and slipping his legs under the quilt, he settles down next to Cat. 

“Not the birds and bees talk. The being safe and, uh, _careful_ talk. I’ve been reading a few pamphlets, and there are things they need to know.” He blushes a little and scratches his nose uncomfortably. “Maybe I should get Brandon to talk to Robb. I’m sure he’s slept with a few men.”

Cat rolls her eyes. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Your brother will sleep with anything with a pulse.”

“Only humans, Catelyn,” Ned replies mock-seriously.

Cat laughs, and a small smile touches the corners of Ned’s lips before it hits them both at the same time – the awkwardness of talking about Brandon in this way. 

Cat had dated him first, back in her university days, and it had been a real rollercoaster ride. The highs had been dizzying – if Brandon knew one thing it was how to have fun – but the lows were truly awful. And the lowest point of all had been when she’d found out, after only two months together, that he had cheated on her with three different girls in the space of a fortnight. She’d broken up with him then and there, of course, in a whirl of hurt and anger. But in the end, she’d had to forgive him. 

After all, if it hadn’t been for Brandon, she’d never have met Ned. And even if their paths had somehow crossed, would she have appreciated Ned’s quiet steadiness if it weren’t in such contrast to his brother’s impulsive, hot-blooded recklessness? There was no way to know.

Their shared history weighs them down, and they both sit in silence for a minute, considering all the paths they took in life to end up where they were. The moment draws out longer and longer, before Ned finally breaks it. Coughing sheepishly, he says, “But to get back to the topic, what are we going to do about Robb?”

Cat sighs heavily. “At this point I don’t think we do anything. I don’t even think they’ve realised yet. Or if they have they certainly haven’t done anything about it. If we bring it up now it’ll just scare them, and Robb might lose his best friend.” 

Which, despite the fact that Theon eats them out of house and home and is unnecessarily crude and regularly tries to get his hands on their alcohol, is the last thing she wants. Cat had made a mistake with Brandon, but she’d found something genuinely wonderful with Ned. That kind of love is all she wants for her children – so if Robb found it with Theon, she’d do whatever she could to protect it.

Ned looks at Cat then – at the woman who’s been his wife for so many years and yet still surprises and impresses him every day. Their love was so tightly interwoven into the fabric of their lives that sometimes it seemed almost ordinary. But then once in a while it would hit him out of nowhere, a sudden surge of warmth and respect and affection that would swell in his chest and leave him breathless.

“You’re so wise,” he says, voice soft and heartfelt. “What would I do without you?”

Cat smiles, pretends to consider it. “Well, you’d probably get Brandon to talk to Robb. And he’d tell an overly explicit story about a magical night he spent with an artist in Paris, or a musician in Vienna, or – or some lucky man, anyway. And then I guess you’d just spend the next ten years paying thousands and thousands of dollars in Robb’s psychiatric bills.”

Net lets out one of his rare, choking laughs, and Cat laughs too, a tendril of her long hair falling forward into her face. Ned reaches across to tuck it back behind her ear, then lets his fingers linger, half curled in the bedtime tangle of her auburn locks, half just touching her face. His thumb brushes along her cheekbone, down the line of her jaw. 

His other hand slips slowly up her thigh, over the bend of her hip, and settles at the gentle curve of her waist. He draws her closer, leaning in to kiss her throat, and then –

And then there’s a thundering of footsteps, and they have just enough time to spring apart before Arya bursts through the door. “ _Dad_ ,” she whines, her face scrunched with righteous anger, “Theon and Robb won’t shut up and it’s late and I have to get up early and I told them and they didn’t stop. And they won’t even let me play their stupid game with them because they know I’ll just kick their butts so can you go and tell Theon to go home for once? _Please_?”

Cat promptly picks up her book again, flicking through its pages until she finds her place. “She asked for you, honey,” she tells Ned, leaning back against the bedstead to resume reading. “Better go take care of things.” 

Ned just sighs and kicks his feet out from under the covers. Standing, he resignedly slides his scruffy old slippers back on. Bending down to kiss Cat lightly on the forehead, he murmurs, “At least I don’t need Brandon’s help on this one.”

Cat’s laugh follows him all the way out the door and down the hall.

 

o3. Arya

Arya might be young, but she isn’t stupid. She knows things. She sees things. And just because she doesn’t care about boys the way Sansa does (really, who has the time?) she’s watched enough television to understand romance.

She’s also watched enough TV to know that love invariably leads to someone getting hurt. Which to her mind is just more reason not to bother – things would be so much _easier_ if boys and girls were just friends, like her and Micah – but she knows that not everyone is as sensible as she is. People (especially stupid teenagers) are going to fall for each other. People are going to get their hearts broken. But if she has anything to say about it, those people are not going to be members of her family.

Which is why, when Theon walks into the kitchen one afternoon, she glances up at him sharply. He’d followed Robb back to their place after school, like usual, they’d gone to play video games, like usual, and now he’d come to raid the fridge, like usual. 

He takes a swig of orange juice – right from the bottle – then spends a long minute rummaging around with his head buried in the refrigerator’s depths. Finally he emerges, hands full of all the makings of an extremely impressive sandwich, and as he elbows the fridge door shut he notices Arya’s presence for the first time.

“Hey,” he says, jerking his chin up in greeting. Laying all his ingredients down on the bench, he looks thoughtful. “Got any mayo?”

Arya levels a glare at him. “You finished it all yesterday, remember? You were making a snack and Jon’s biology textbook was sitting on the counter. And then _somehow_ all the pages with diagrams on human reproduction got _mysteriously_ slathered with mayonnaise.”

Theon laughs. “Oh yeah, that’s right. He really should know better than to leave his stuff in the kitchen.” Pausing thoughtfully, he examines the spread before him, then shrugs and pulls open the bag of bread. “I guess it doesn’t matter, it was only for Robb anyway…”

Quick as a snake, Arya pulls open the kitchen drawer and grabs the biggest, sharpest knife she can see. Spinning around, she points the blade first at his face, then at his crotch.

“If you hurt Robb, I swear I will cut your balls off,” she says menacingly, jabbing the knife at him a couple of times for emphasis. “I am not joking, Theon Greyjoy. I will find you, I will hurt you, and the doctors will never, _ever_ be able to fix you.”

For once in his life Theon actually seems to be speechless, a few slices of bread clutched forgotten in his hand. He stares at her stupidly, and she can see him trying to put together some kind of comeback when all the words in the world have suddenly evaporated on him. 

Arya figures she should leave on a high note, so she slams the knife down in the bench in front of him and then strides off without a backwards glance. But as she’s leaving she thinks she hears, though she’ll never be certain, a small mumbling voice.

“It’s only mayo…”

 

o4. Jon

Robb slides his pawn forward. Jon stares down at the chessboard between them, his fingers gently running over the tips of the black pieces in front of him, before finally moving one of his own pawns.

Grinning, Robb nudges a bishop into position. They both love the game. Cat’s friend – and Aunt Lysa’s “friend” – Petyr had taught them the basics years ago, and while neither had succeeded in beating him yet, they both showed a certain aptitude for strategy and bold moves. 

Except on this occasion, Jon has other things on his mind. He hesitates as he picks up another pawn, tapping it thoughtfully on the board. “Robb,” he says eventually, still not finalising his move, “We tell each other things, right?”

Robb looks up in surprise. “Of course. We’re brothers.”

Jon nods, still tapping the pawn. “Like, you told me when Dacey Mormont invited you to the dance. And you told me afterwards about how you guys had a good time, but you’d decided to just be friends. And I told you when Ygritte was, you know. Being Ygritte.”

A grin suddenly splits Robb’s cheeks. “I love that girl… is she trying to get in your pants again?”

Jon flushes, swipes a self-conscious hand across his face. He doesn’t want to think about Ygritte and her constant attempts to seduce him. He’s agonised enough over the explicit, embarrassing, _incredible_ things she whispers in his ear when they sit next to each other in class. He clears his throat a little uneasily. “No. I mean, not really. Well, she has been telling people that we’re going out. And also that we’re… well, you know.”

Robb’s eyes flicker, and Jon sighs quietly. He should have guessed that Robb would already know all about that. When a rumour – probably started by Theon, _god_ how Jon hated that guy sometimes – had gone around that Jon was a virgin because he couldn’t get it up for anything other than a nice juicy watermelon, the whole school had heard about it. It had got to the point where Jon couldn’t even have fruit for lunch without someone laughing at him. But then Ygritte had stood up for him. In her own, fiercely unique way.

Jon’s cheeks just flame even redder, and he slams down the chess piece. This isn’t going the way he’d planned at all. He’d wanted to talk about Robb’s love life, not his own. And he certainly hadn’t wanted to discuss Ygritte, who was terrifying and overwhelming and strangely captivating.

Lost in thought, staring unseeingly at the chessboard before him, he only looks up when Robb says, “I don’t know why you don’t just go out with her for real. She might be a bit intense, but she obviously fancies you. And no matter what you say, I think you’re a bit hot for her too…” he pauses, suddenly struck by a thought. “Wait, is that what you’re trying to tell me? That you finally asked her on a date? That’s great, man! Just treat her well, okay? I don’t think she’s the kind of girl you want to jerk around.”

“What? I wouldn’t – _no_ ,” Jon says emphatically. “I just.” He runs a frustrated hand through his dark hair as Robb casually moves his king into play. “What I’m trying to say is that you can tell me stuff, okay? If you’re seeing someone. Even if it’s someone you think I hate, or won’t approve of or whatever. I want to hear about it. And I’ll still, like, support you.”

Robb frowns, surprised by the serious tone this conversation has taken. “Oh. Yeah, dude. Sure.”

Jon exhales, smiles. “Good.” Examining the chessboard briefly, he pushes one of his knights into position. “So, anything you want to tell me?”

Shrugging, Robb shakes his head. “No? You know I’m not dating anyone.”

Jon can tell from his clear blue gaze that he’s telling the truth. So they hadn’t got it together yet – god they were pathetic. 

“There’s no one then? Not even someone you fancy? No girls, or…” he trails off.

Robb pulls an apologetic face, bumping his pawn forward. “Nope. No girls at the moment.”

Jon stares at him, and there’s just one tiny moment where Robb seems like he’s going to say more. But then he shakes his head and looks back at the game. Huffing in irritation, Jon does the same, and flicks one of his pieces forward without thinking. 

Suddenly, Robb’s face breaks to a grin. “Checkmate!” he exclaims, shoving his bishop across the board and knocking down Jon’s queen.

Jon groans, and Robb just laughs as he sweeps all the pieces back into the box. 

“Gotta keep an eye on your queen, Jon,” he says, smiling. “And speaking of which, do yourself a favour and ask Ygritte on a date. She likes you, you like her – it’ll be fine! There’s no point lying to yourself about it.”

Jon thunks his head against the table. 

 

o5. Robb & Theon

One evening after dinner, the Starks are in the living room getting ready for their family movie night. It’s Bran’s turn to choose the film, and he’s just deciding between _Homeward Bound_ and _Snow Dogs_ when Robb and Theon walk in.

Glancing up from where he’s playing a quick game of cards with Arya, Jon spies Theon and scowls darkly. Robb shoots him a beseeching look and, gritting his teeth and looking like it pains him greatly, Jon forces a smile.

Robb clears his throat loudly. Everyone looks up, and under the weight of their combined gaze he swallows nervously. “I, uh. I have something to tell you all. Theon and I. We’re…” 

His fingers flex awkwardly at his side and Theon reaches over and grabs them, twining them with his own. He stares out at the Starks, his expression defiant but also somehow proud. Robb looks down at their joined hands, smiles softly at Theon, and then turns back to his family with a helpless shrug. “We’re dating,” he finishes.

His announcement is met with silence. Sansa has her hands clasped at her chest, the same love-struck expression on her face that she always gets when the romantic leads in her favourite movies finally share their first kiss. Cat and Ned just stare at each other, mouths open like they’re trying to find the words but can’t quite manage.

In the end, however, they don’t have to. Arya glances up from her hand and rolls her eyes. “Well duh,” she says.

Robb laughs, looking slightly embarrassed. “Were we really that obvious?” he asks.

The Starks share a look. 

“Um…”


End file.
